


The One Where Bro Meets Cal

by eighth_chiharu



Series: The One Where Dave's a Vampire [9]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Forced Bonding, Forced Relationship, M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-12 01:19:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11726532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eighth_chiharu/pseuds/eighth_chiharu
Summary: Long, long ago. Bro is old, Cal is older, and Cal's father, Lord English, is the oldest of them all. When LE grows tired of his arrogant son, he hands him off to someone he thinks will give his progeny a valuable lesson.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter: writing by eighth_chiharu, art by madragingven over at tumblr.com!

 

 


	2. gettin to know u

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bro helps Cal understand exactly what it means to be Marked by a vampire.

It’s full dark when the guards hustle Calvin and his new Master out to the street. There’s no formal bow of farewell, nor any attempt to give Calvin a cloak or hat, and the marble doors, so heavy that only vampires could move them easily, boom shut so quickly that they nearly pinch Calvin’s well-dressed posterior.

“Watch it!” he snaps, and doesn’t quite believe it when the doors don’t immediately spring open for the guards to babble apologies. He stands there in the quiet, the uneven paving stones rough beneath his thin-soled, decorative shoes, as the chill of the night starts to lick at his toes. “They can’t be serious. This is outrageous. Someone’s poor idea of humor. A joke.”

“You’re pretty much a joke now, Cal, yeah,” Ambrose agrees. 

Being a vampire, he doesn’t feel the temperature. He glances around, lifts his head slightly to scent the crisp air. What he finds there beside woodsmoke, cooked meat, and piss remains a mystery. He turns and marches off to the right, quickly disappearing into the shadows of the street. “C’mon, keep up, fancy pants. Can’t ditch me and we both know it.”

“It’s  _Calvin_.” He follows because he knows his father expects him to, hating that the uncouth fledgling is right: Calvin can’t ditch him. They’re bound now, the tug of his new leash smarting deep inside him, throbbing like poison. The reflection of the knife wound aches, too, but with less insistence. Something soft squishes beneath his shoe, and he feels every bump before the wet sinks in through the seams. “God – why don’t you have a horse? Or a litter, or – You’re some poor, starving street rat, aren’t you? If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get me a horse. You’ll treat me right. My father won’t tolerate any damage done to my person,  _Ambrose_.” No honorific, no surname.

“Bro’s fine,” Ambrose hums, irritatingly unperturbed. “Not Amber, though, don’t like that one. Have to kill you if you try that one.”

The threat of casual, actual death is startling, until Calvin realizes the man’s got to be posturing. No-one would dare kill him. “You’re temporary, you know. You’ll last maybe, what, a year? He’ll expect me whole and healthy when I return, not nasty and lice-ridden as you no doubt are.”

“You’re nasty enough. Don’t need my help on that account.”

“Shut your insolent mouth,” Calvin hisses. “My father –“

“Fuck your father.” Bro’s back is to Calvin, but all the same, Calvin’s positive Bro’s rolling his eyes. “Lucifer’s blood, for someone so old, you’re sure stupid. Your dad don’t want you around, can’t you tell even that much? And he won’t want you, not for a long, looong time. Anything I do to you will be healed up by the time he even remembers that you exist.”

“That’s a  _lie_ –“

“Yep, obviously a lie, that’s why you’re my Servant. What a coincidence. Shut up already. Keep walkin’, or I’ll leave you here, and let whoever finds you have their way with you.”

Calvin seethes. As if his father wouldn’t want him. As if he’d just hand him over to some mentally deficient vampire  _baby_. The very idea is absurd. His father  _always_ wants him. Calvin is Lord English’s only child, the only one born before his mother left for darker shores and sweeter men. His father  _adores_ Calvin. Of course, yes, his father is punishing him, that much is clear, but this setup can’t be permanent. The longest exile was a month, and even then, Calvin was kept in a French country house with three servants, given delicious food and expensive wine for every meal. This is perhaps more extreme than anything else Calvin has previously experienced, but so what? This too shall pass, isn’t that what the Good Book says?

…although, to be fair, hosting a drinking party for twenty of Calvin’s closest vampire friends inside a walled convent perhaps also surpassed any previous known villainy on Calvin’s part, especially since it was the nuns, and their tiny orphan charges, that were the drinks. All of the nuns. And all of the orphans. In one night. Calvin couldn’t imbibe, such as it was, but oh, watching the frenzy was amusing!

An unexpected yelp from some vagrant mutt yanks him from his musings, and he notices Bro has stopped and a skinny hound is scrabbling to its feet, darting as fast as it can across the narrow street. It disappears into an alley between houses that are  smaller and shabbier than anything Calvin’s ever stayed in. There’s some plaster and paint, but most of it is dirty or peeling or both. There are few lanterns out, and fewer people. Those that are around hurry past with eyes averted, cloaks pulled tight, trying to avoid notice. There’s no servants running errands, no merchants trying to catch an exiting theater crowd, not even the rowdy but rich sons from the universities who frequently tomcat at night. There’s little life here at all, save that which skitters unseen through the trash accumulating in the gutters.

With a twist of his lip, Calvin sneers, “You kick dogs. Color me surprised.” He’s not, at all. “Why are we still headed this way? There’s nothing but slums in that direction, and sick, skinny people that no self-respecting vampire would ever touch. I’m accustomed to a certain level of existence, I’ll not spend my days squatting in a dirty hole with a vampire who’s barely broken in his fangs and already kissing my father’s ass.”

“Duly noted. I don’t give a fuck, but noted.”

Enraged, he lifts his chin at the dark. “I am Calvin English, Prince of the Southern Vampire Realm, and you will afford me my due, or –“

The breath is knocked out of him instantly as Bro’s wide hand slams into his chest, pinning him to the nearest wall – a wall that had been ten feet away. He chokes, then gags uselessly, eyes bugging in pain and surprise.

“Okay, listen good, pipsqueak,” Bro says cheerfully, as if Calvin isn’t drumming his heels against the wall, unable to touch the ground. If the lack of oxygen to his human servant is causing Bro pain, Bro doesn’t show it. Bro doesn’t seem to care at all. “You’re one of those spoiled brats who don’t have half the brains God tried to give ‘em. You been hooked up to your Da for so long, hidin’ in his shadow, that you ain’t had a chance to be your own man. You’re a cowardly lickspittle, but hey, maybe that ain’t your fault. So I’m gonna make you a deal.” He shoves harder, and something in Calvin’s chest creaks. “You do what I tell ya, and I won’t snap your neck. Understand?”

Calvin gasps for air that doesn’t come. He’s going to die here. The vampire he’s bonded to is a monster, a real monster. There’s no hope. No help. His father has abandoned him –

“Glad you get it.” Bro steps back, releasing his hold, and Calvin falls to the filthy ground, coughing. He sucks in great coughing breaths, the air burning his throat. “Now let’s try this again. Get up and follow me, and I’ll show ya everything y’need to know to stop being a twat.”

Dizzy, Calvin snarls and tries to hiss.

Bro ignores him. He steps past Calvin, just a couple of feet, and pulls a key on a leather thong out of his doublet. Shrugging as if to say, What’s a guy to do with troublesome kids?,  he unlocks a wooden gate in the wall and steps through, leaving it open behind him.

The message is clear: Calvin can sit here all night if he wants. He can sulk out in the cold, which he feels, though not as keenly as he would if he weren’t bonded to a vampire. He won’t actually die, and he won’t fall ill if he spends hours on the street… but it’s not exactly comfortable, either. Calvin isn’t used to anything uncomfortable. He spends most of his time avoiding the very idea of discomfort.

The winner this round is not Calvin.

He stands, staggers unsteadily to the gate, and steps through it. It opens into a bleak, squalid little patio, mostly cracked paving stones and shriveled plants. There’s a broken chair and an overturned table, a shattered urn with mold growing along its pieces. Disgusting. He picks his way over the refuse to the half open door beyond. He pushes it open, peering inside, prepared for the worst.

“Shut the door.” A spark flares in the dark, the sharp click of flint against steel loud to Calvin’s ears. He does as he’s bid, staring in wide-eyed surprise as the fat candle before Ambrose catches, and the room is illuminated in faint gold light.

“You lit that yourself,” Calvin gapes. “Are you mad? You could’ve died!”

The vampire places the bit of flint and steel back into a box and sets it down. “Nice o’ you to care.”

“You would’ve taken me with you if you did!”

Bro cocks an eyebrow. “I actually kinda liked you for a minute there. It’s gone now. ‘S fine, I can teach you plenty without liking you.” He carries the candle to the hearth, squats beside it, and begins to lay a fire in the brick fireplace, taking tinder and small logs from a copper tub off to the side.

Calvin watches, horrified, but even that most basic of fears dissipates as he watches the man work. It takes a while to start a fire from nothing; Calvin can’t maintain the required energy to be shocked the entire time. His attention wanders, taking in his surroundings. There’s a red-cushioned sofa and two matching chairs; a carved table with angelic faces running up the legs; a few unlit lamps with stained glass shades; two paintings of country landscapes in what looks like the haze of dawn. “What is this place?”

“A house.”

“But…” It’s Spartan, but clean. It smells of wood polish and herbs. The kitchen must be in the back, through the unlit hallway. It’s almost… tasteful. “Is it yours?”

Bro ignores him. “The bedroom’s down there, and the middens are beyond that, in the yard. Share it with the neighbors. Bring your own rags if you need ‘em.” Bro stands, dusting off his hands as the new flames climb onto the logs and the house grows brighter. “That oughta do it.”

Calvin refuses to step closer, though the warmth is delicious, curling around his legs. “What do you even need a fire for?”

“Not for me. For you.” Bro leans the iron poker up against the wall. “Gonna get cold otherwise.”

“I – Well, that’s very –”

“Now strip.”

Both of Calvin’s eyebrows shoot into his hairline. “I beg your pardon?”

“We need to get our relationship real clear. You’re the Servant, I’m the Master. You ain’t gonna learn nothin’ ‘til we set that all straight. Now.” He snaps his fingers. “Strip, or I’ll Order you to do it, and have you bark like a dog, too.”

They stare at each other, Calvin testing the magic that holds them. Bro waits, placidly unmoving. Faintly, the desire to take off his clothes begins to stir through Calvin’s brain. Wouldn’t it be so comfortable to be naked? It’d be so very nice to feel the heat of the fire on his bare skin –

“All right,” he snarls. “Stop it, I’m doing it, stop trying to control me!”

Bro smirks. "Then hurry it up.”

Calvin does. Uneasy, he unties the laces on his velvet doublet. He removes the voluminous thing with some effort, debating where to set it and finally placing it on the table. His tunic slides off much more easily, the silk whispering against his fingertips. He steps out of his shoes, undoes his garters, then balances on one foot, then the other, to slide his stockings off. All of it goes on the table’s polished surface.

“Small clothes, too,” Bro says.

“I know that,” Calvin snaps back, trying to sense what Bro’s feeling and getting nothing. The bond between them should share emotion; is Bro that good at shielding? But he’s so young! “I know what ‘undressed’ means.”

Bro doesn’t comment. Calvin tries to stall, rolling up his stockings and lining up his shoes, but at last he has no choice. He loosens the drawstring and take the small cotton shorts off. He folds them and sets them atop his other clothes, as if this whole thing was his idea, then stands before the table, the firelight dancing over his skin, his hands on his hips. Bro stands there for a moment, his eyes roving over Calvin’s form. What a pig. Fine, let him look. Let Bro drink in as much of Calvin as the bastard wishes.

“Skinny little fuck, you got a damn high opinion of yourself, but I knew that already. Since yer so smart, I guess ya know what comes next, Cal.”

“For the last time, it’s Calvin –” Calvin starts, but a gate opens somewhere in his mind, the one he sought but couldn’t locate. It opens, and he can tell it’s only cracked the barest amount, but that tiny crevice lets through a flood of hunger that rocks him back on his heels.The want, the eager, visceral desire, is incredible.He staggers back a step, then another, until the edge of the table bumps his ass.

Bro watches him with glowing eyes, glinting in the deep-set hollows of his face like pools of lava or puddles of molten gold. They burn, those eyes, and Bro pulls his own doublet over his head, dislodging his hat, and yanks off his codpiece, and Calvin is surprised none of it burst into flames. “You ready? Gonna teach lesson number one. Hell, the best lesson, if y’ask me.”

Calvin fumbles for something sharp to fend Bro off with, a word or a claw or a knife, but nothing comes to him. “You can’t,” he says, and it sounds pathetic. “You wouldn’t dare. You wouldn’t!”

Bro just smiles and puts his hand on Calvin’s groin. Calvin flinches, and Bro murmurs, low and deep, distractingly normal, “C’mon, Cal. Who’s my Servant? Who’s my li’l Cal?”

“I’m not your anything –” He breaks off, breath stolen at the upswell of lust that rolls through him. He’s drowning beneath it, he hates it, it’s not him –

“ ‘Course it ain’t. That’s me, son, all me. You’re so pretty, I can’t resist.” Bro’s closer now, his mouth to Calvin’s ear, his other hand sliding over Calvin’s hip, down the shallow swell of it. “Don’t gotta be so scared. I know you are, I can feel it. Can hear your li’l heart beatin’ away. It’ll be better if ya just lemme do my thing. Stop fightin’.”

“No!”

There’s a soft chuckle, the warm breath of it sending goosebumps rippling over Calvin’s skin. He’s going to be forced. He’s never been forced, not ever, not in his entire four thousand years of life. He’s only human, but he always manages to escape, or his father rescues him –

“My father! He’s coming!”

“He really ain’t, kid,” Bro says.

“He will!”

“Ain’t nobody comin’.” It’s almost regrettable, except the lust is still there, the want. “Just you and me now. Give in.”

“No,” Calvin chokes, and he’s ashamed, because he’s crying, and he never cries. Not even in front of his father. The tears are hot and wet on his cheeks, the heat of the fire baking them into crisp lines, stiff channels for more tears to follow. “You said you didn’t like me, you can’t  _want_ me if you don’t even  _like_ me.”

“I lied.” Bro slides his hands downward, past Calvin’s hips. He kneels as he goes, running his fingers down over Calvin’s bare thighs, over his calves. “Don’t know you, Cal, but maybe y’ain’t half bad. Don’t hate me for wantin’ to do it this way. It’ll be faster in the end, you’ll see.”

The suggestion makes the anger suddenly flare up again, and suddenly Calvin hates Bro more than anyone, even though he can sense the sincerity in his words, the honest desire. The door, the gate, the whatever magic between them swings wider, and Calvin can see himself the way Bro sees him: slender, pale in the firelight, the hollow in his navel, the shadows between his legs, the auburn curly hair just before Bro’s face.

“Stop looking,” he protests, seizing the fury, trying to latch onto it, use it. He puts his hands on Bro’s head, grabs his hair – and a sweet pang of bliss rings through him, a chime as clear as Bohemian crystal. He gasps, shocked. “What –”

“Do it again,” Bro says. It’s half order, half request.

Fresh tears spill down Calvin’s face. “No.” This is wrong. Even with that magical corridor opening even wider between them, displaying sincerity and a little bit of hope, Calvin wants to resist. Bro thinks this is the right way to do things, but it’s not. It can’t be.

“Why not?” It’s as quiet as the crackle of the logs in the fire, those small, noticeable words.

Because no-one can win someone by touching them. It’s impossible. Bro slides his hands up, the big knuckles sliding gently, almost tenderly, beneath Calvin’s balls. They stroke the soft skin, fondle the sack, and Calvin shudders at the sensation, his eyelids fluttering half closed. The fire’s heat seems to stream into his lower belly, barely giving him time to process the sensation before Bro groans again, quieter, and Calvin’s own bliss undulates back to him. He moans, embarrassed, aroused at himself, at how much Bro likes making Calvin enjoy this.

He mumbles, desperate, “You’re using your powers on me.”

Bro licks a line up Calvin’s hard shaft, setting both of them to shuddering. “You know I ain’t.”

He does know. The thing they share goes both ways, and Bro is letting him feel everything. But Calvin’s hands move anyway, clench and tug, just to prove this is bullshit. Bro groans softly, breath against Calvin’s groin, and Calvin doubles over with the echoes of the pleasure of it. “You can’t like this that much,” he whispers, heart thudding faster. He’s so hot now. The fire, or the feelings, they’re drowning him. “You can’t! … can you?”

The answer comes to him in thought, in smug yet encouraging overtones.

 _Yes_.


End file.
